


Smile

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: 5+1 Things, Curufin's son issues and daddy issues, Gen, and Finrod issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2617721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Curufin smiled and one time he did not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile

Curufinwë holds his breath as his father examines the handwriting practice assignment he had set his son, silver-grey eyes flitting critically over the small, neat letters Curufinwë had set down so meticulously, his brow furrowed, exquisitely careful not to make even the tiniest of ink smudges or misshapen letters. 

"Very good work, Curufinwë." Fëanáro’s face lights up with his smile, and Curufinwë feels his heart lift and float with pride and relief. "Not a tehta out of place."

Curufinwë smiles then, tilting his head back as his father sets the thick-lined practice book aside, then leans down to ruffle his hair, lift him into his arms. Curufinwë feels his joy bursting from him, a grin spread across his face, and he claps his small, ink-stained hands in delight. “Thank you, Atar!”

———

He is older now; he holds his own son for the first time. The child is ruddy-faced and lets out a quiet mewling sound, stirring in his father’s arms as his mother looks on, and for a moment Curufinwë feels a sense of disconnection, or strangeness wash over him, setting him on edge.

Then the child’s eyes flicker open, and Curufinwë sees that they are silver, as silver as his own, as silver as Fëanáro’s. 

The child extends a pudgy hand and reaches out to him, and Curufinwë feels himself smile.

———

The heat is intense as the heat of the forge, dancing on his the skin of his face, as he watches the ships burn, the masts and rigging hissing and creaking as the flames lick along the wood.  _So much beauty, destroyed_ , he thinks. But there is a kind of beauty to this too, a greater kind even. The kind that comes from freedom, from cutting the ties that bound them to the old world, a new world born from the ashes that would be theirs alone.

In that moment there is nothing else, but his father and his son at either side of him, and the flames that dance before them all, whistling and rushing joyfully upwards into the dark sky. His eldest brother will see, he tells himself.  _Even Nelyo will understand, in time, and he will wish he had been part of this._

Curufinwë smiles, lips skinned back to bare his teeth as he stares deep into the blaze, letting the red glow of the hungry flames heat his face, and evaporate the tears of ecstasy that are already dampening his cheeks. 

———-

He stands upon the walls of their fortress, his and Tyelko’s. He looks out over the green fields and the woods in the distance, the wind whipping his hair, and he smiles. From here he can see the mountains in the north and east, and a small slice of river making a silver loop in the south. 

 _Yes_ , he thinks.  _Nelyo was wrong to give away the crown, to dispossess us, but at least we have this. These lands are ours, wide and green and full of promise, and we will hold them against our enemies. This much, at least, is what our father wanted._

———

"Go" says the young king, his voice hard and hollow with grief and suppressed fury. "Neither bread nor rest shall you have in Nargothrond while my rule lasts, and there shall be no friendship between my people and the house of Fëanor from now on."

"Let it be so!" fumes Tyelko, eyes flashing in the bright light that spills through the open gate of Nargothrond. Curufinwë merely smiles, looking at Artaresto and thinking of Findaráto.  _Bright where this one is milk pale, gilded steel where this one is mere lacquered wood. I must give him that much, at least. Findaráto is dead though, and soon Artaresto will be too, this weak shadow of a king. At least Findaráto was mildly entertaining._

He smiles and turns to face his son. “Come, Tyelpë. We ride for Himring.”

———

"Do you want to see him?"

The voice is the first one he has heard in a long time. Or not precisely heard, he thinks, for there is no sound here. Curufinwë knows that he is dead, in the abstract sense that he had once noted the weather or the quality of a jewel made by a middling hand. 

"Yes" he says, knowing somehow whom the speaker means, and yet not knowing, putting the knowledge aside for a moment as if this were a dream.

A tapestry is there before him, emerging out of the greyness. He does not have eyes, and yet he sees, the picture unfolding in time. 

A broken thing, twisted and soaked with blood, cruel red weals covering burned skin. Something twitches in his memory, those memories from life that seem to have faded a little, blurring and twisting at the edges as his mind and spirit slipped into these grey halls.  _A brother, unconscious and bleeding and missing a hand, all scarecrow limbs and bones broken time and time again._

_Nelyo?_

_But no,_  he thinks.  _Incorrect_ , _Curufinwë. You know that is not the right answer._ The voice chimes in his head, and he does not know if it his own or not. 

But he does know who the figure is, the memory coming back to him all in a rush.

_Tyelpë?_

That voice sounds in his head again. _See what you have wrought,_ it taunts.  _He ran from you, and in his idealism, in his folly, he wanted to preserve, to keep. To trust and be trusted. To love and be loved, as you never loved him. You did this, as much as any._

_He was my son. I did love him._

_Did you?_

_Yes._

_Tell me, clever one, did it make a difference, in the end?_

The pike pierces his son’s body from groin to throat. If Curufinwë had had a voice, he would have screamed, sobbed. If he had had a face he would have clawed at it, rending his skin.

_Look at what you have done. Smile, Curufinwë, for your work has borne its final fruit._


End file.
